Garry Hill leapt to the defence of his Woking side as they slumped to a fourth straight league defeat.

Dover Athletic were the latest beneficiaries and it was a goal from Jack Parkinson - who made 58 appearances in a spell at Kingfield which ended just over two years ago - which revived their own hopes of the play-offs and drove yet another nail into any lingering hopes his old club still possessed.

The Cards have taken just two out of the last 21 points - relegation form - since winning at Wrexham on January 9, that trip to Wales having taken them to 22 out of 27.

Dover might easily have been three or four goals up by the interval rather than one, only goalkeeper Jake Cole keeping Woking in the game.

John Goddard (Image: TMS)

He was by far the busier - John Goddard , called up for the England C squad, the only consistent cause of concern for the visitors - blocking from Ricky Miller in the 29th minute after a swiftly taken corner and then seeing Cameron Norman bundle away the follow-up for a corner.

Sean Raggett should have done better than head way over when he rose clear from the set-piece, his side always looking dangerous in such situations.

There was nothing Cole could do though six minutes later, an apparently innocuous free-kick on the left from Ricky Modeste finding Parkinson - returning to his old club - to neatly head just inside the far post.

And in stoppage time a Stephen Payne centre from the right was well met by the lively Miller but just tipped away by Cole to his left.

Cards could have been in even deeper trouble when, moments after the restart, Joey Jones appeared to bundle over Mitchell Pinnock in the box.

Garry Hill (Image: Grahame Larter)

Hill's attempt to play 4-3-3 turned out to be more like 4-5-1 for much of the first hour as his men consistently lost the battles in midfield, leaving Quigley isolated and the ball rarely reaching him. Carr, who had a spell at Portsmouth earlier in the season, looked ill at ease while Matt Butcher in central midfield struggled to make much impact in front of a surprisingly patient 1,305 crowd.

Caprice, usually seen at right-back, made a stronger impression on his arrival to stretch the Whites' defence, Goddard benefiting from the extra space too. Yet there were few genuine opportunities, the best coming from Chris Arthur's left-wing cross which picked out Keiran Murtagh 10 yards out and totally unmarked only for the resulting shot to be well wide of the near post.

Mark Ricketts (Image: Grahame Larter)

And a scramble in the final moments saw the ball hit Mark Ricketts on the head before flying over in what would have been an unlikely and ill-deserved equaliser

"In the first half we were Dover were the better side and we were very fortunate to be 1-0 down. In the second we improved and in the last 25 or 30 minutes we got behind them several times and the ball went across the box - there wasn't the quality.

"Dover are a big and strong team who don't play a lot of football with good players up top and tough to play against."

But he added: "We worked hard but when you have gone seven games without a win there isn't much confidence there. We have a lot of young players and people get carried away. You have to understand you have spells like this when you've had a poor run and made a lot of changes. We are asking boys to be men."